Polishing the tip?
 

Kind of a suggestive statement, eh. :)

Anyhow, in lieu of wasting money on the chrome exhaust tip that Porsche sells, would it be possible to polish the stock tip to a nice shine? I know nothing about this sort of thing.

I wonder if you could remove it, and either:

1) Have someone polish it for you- some metal finishing company??

2) Take to someone that could plate it with chrome??

3) And do either #1 or #2 for less the than the +$350 that Porsche wants to charge for the chrome tip.

Ironic, but I posted a suggestion to this question just about an hour ago to someone wanting to buy a new tip. I use a polishing creme called MAAS. I started using this stuff to clean stainless steel firearms...found it works great on the exhaust tip. A little elbo grease will be required but it took my 9 year old tip to a like new appearance. I bought it at Sportsman's Warehouse, but i know BassPro and several other sporting goods stores sell it. I'm sure it's available on the "net" as well. Good luck!

eslai, you know, just the outer most bezel area of the chrome tip is shiny. The rest looks like the normal S tip. FYI.

I have used some kind of cream on my 2.5 exhaust before with good effect (i used this cream for old coins to give them a shiny finish) can't remember the name but it did not last very long as the exhaust went back to his burnt color fairly quickly.

i don't think it is possible to keep an exhaust in a polished state all the time, funny as i was looking at the S exhaust today pondering if i should try to polish it as quite a lot of metal is visible from behind

Thanks for the responses. See, the idea I'm thinking of is not to just keep it shiny and new looking, I'm talking about getting a near-mirror finish to it like, well, all the stainless steel silverware in my kitchen drawer. :)

bmusatti, I had no idea the tequipment tip was that cheesy! Amazing.

Anyhow, I figure one could buff it real good and get some kind of polish out of it but that yeah, it'd be a bit of a bother to maintain. Anyone with any first-hand knowledge of that sort of thing?

This is all it is:

Hi Elsai,

In order to polish the tip to a near mirror like finish, you need to find out what type of stainless the tip is composed up. 98% of the time, OEM manufactures use a 409 type stainless on the exhausts. This type is unable to be polished out with a machine buffer....sorry. Your other option is to take the tip OFF and have it chromed.

At Magnaflow they use to use a 436 type stainless you could polish out all day with a machine buffer/polish. Customers would polish out thier tubing all the time, and they came out sick looking. MF then changed to a 409 Class stainless, which looked shinny, but could not be polished out to be mirror like.

Hope this helps.

KRZ

If you want a "mirror" finish my suggestion will disappoint. It shines it up great but in no way is it a mirror type look. I'll be watching to see if anyone has a viable solution!

eslai, check-out www.westcoastchrome.com in Modesto, CA. 209-544-2436. Maybe they can do the chrome for you.

Thanks again guys, great information!

that's very nice where is this rear coming from?

Hey Olly, the photo is from Porsche's website for thier Boxster Tequipment stuff.

is the whole exhaust different or just the tip, i like the shape of that rear bumper and the exhaust bottom pipes do not show as much as mine

Oh nonono man, it's just the tip! For $400 you're lucky to get a lightbulb from Porsche. :p The bumper in that picture is stock, they just make it look pretty.

eslai, are you going to get the tip chromed??

Probably not, but I'll probably look into it eventually.

Eslai, here is another tip to consider from the Cayman:

http://e-partssales.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=P&Product_Code =98711198100&Category_Code=987ext

Eslai, did you see this?

Is your car back??

I use Brasso to polish the exhaust tip. It works great and can be purchased at any grocery store.

http://www.stanleylondon.com/brasso.htm

I have used Maas on the exhaust pipes of my Harley and it also works great ( even better then Brasso ! )

http://www.maasinc.com/products_metalpolish.asp

Nick